Just for clarity, I’m actually from the UK, but we also have FPTP voting and a number of similar issues. The Democrats would (for many issues) be considered right wing in the UK though… The really difference though is we actually have minor parties that can leech power from the big parties (see Brexit for a side effect of that).
This is a wonderful condemnation of our electoral process…
I agree with this actually. The electoral process is horrible and needs reform. We just disagree on how to hopefully eventually achieve said reform
Lower voter participation is a threat to “moderate” parties, forcing them to appeal to radicals they’d previously written off as irrelevant if they wish to remain relevant themselves.
and Democrats follow the Overton Window to the right in search of the new middle.
Gonna combine the rest here, because I think the crux of the issue is this. I believe that not voting leads to the Democrats shifting right, feeling no need to chase the “lost votes” that are too “radical” to ever convince. They’re too focused at trying to take votes from the Republicans to care about those further left.
Your (simplified) argument, if I’m correct, is that by not voting you present a base of people that are currently untapped, and hope to encourage the democrats to move towards you in order to convince you to vote for them again.
It’s effectively the same argument I used to claim that voting for the dems would encourage the republicans to shift left, but you’re trying to shift the dems further left instead.
My concern is I think I agree with you regarding how the dems are chasing the republicans to the right, but trying to think about this now (after a few drinks) I still think not voting is worse than voting. The not voting method seems to rely on things getting worse before they get better. i.e. you shift far enough right that there’s a big chunk of people not voting on the left that you can grab up in one fell swoop with a big policy change
Hmmm… I’ll have to think on this further, because you do raise interesting points to consider. So for now instead I would like to say thanks for replying in full and in detail. It’s rare to see people engage this way.